Female circumcision 'was not persecution'

Thursday 16th June 2005

The Tuesday Law report by barrister Kate O'Hanlon in the Independent on 14 June 2005 records the judgement by the UK Immigration Appeal Tribunal that female circumcision was clearly accepted by the majority of the population of Sierra Leone and that the applicant could avoid discrimination by submitting to circumcision.

[Lord Justice Auld found that] "Far from ostracism by society and discrimination by the state in its failure to protect human rights, the persecution in the present case would result in full acceptance by Sierra Leonean society of those young women who underwent the practice into adulthood, fit for marriage and to take full part as women in the life of their communities", writes [O']Hanlon.

South Africa: A Bill outlawing virginity testing and making parents and
doctors liable to charges of assault for circumcising children is one step
closer to enactment.

The Children's Bill was finalised by the National Assembly's social
development committee this week and includes a number of controversial
clauses. At least one opposition party voted against the Bill's adoption,
saying the version finalised by the portfolio committee was "watered down"
compared to previous drafts. ...

Under the heading Social and Cultural
Practices, the Bill also outlaws virginity testing, putting it in the same
league as female circumcision and saying that children have the right not
to be subjected to cultural and social practices which are "detrimental to
the well-being, health or dignity of the child".

It adds that taking into consideration the age, maturity and "stage of
development" of a male child, he has the right to refuse circumcision.

"A male child that was subjected to circumcision against his will may lay
a charge of assault, indecent assault or assault with the intent to do
grievous bodily harm, as the case may be, against the person that
performed the circumcision or a person that is under an obligation to
protect that child from maltreatment, abuse or degradation and failed to
fulfil this obligation," it says. ...

Does the baby have any standing, then?

The Associated PressSaturday, May 21, 2005

Influenced by infant's cries, man wants ban on circumcision

By JAMES WARDEN Associated Press Writer
BISMARCK, N.D.

Mervin Gajewski remembers hearing an infant's wails while he was having
blood tests done in a Watford City hospital a few years ago.

"Somebody
better help that baby. He sounds hurt," the 78-year-old Alexander man says
he told a nurse.

"You would be, too, if you were being circumcised," she
replied.

When a friend's daughter chose to circumcise her son last year,
Gajewski decided to sue, in an attempt to get North Dakota courts to ban
circumcision. A judge dismissed Gajewski's case last week, but he said he
intends to continue, perhaps with an appeal to the North Dakota Supreme
Court.

"I don't intend to be done with this case one way or another," he
said.

Circumcision involves the removal of sensitive foreskin from the
penis. The procedure is usually done on infants. Nationally, about 56
percent of male infants are circumcised, according to a 2003 survey
compiled by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The
Midwestern region, which includes North Dakota, had a 78 percent
circumcision rate, which is the highest in the country, said CDC spokesman
Bill Crews.

In a March 1999 policy statement, the American Academy of
Pediatrics said there are "potential medical benefits" to circumcision,
including a lessening of the risk of getting urinary tract infections.
However, existing data "are not sufficient to recommend routine ...
circumcision" of newborns, the statement says.

Gajewski says the reasons
justifying the procedure are speculative, using the assumption that
"somewhere down the line, it's going to be good for you."

"Surgery isn't
done that way," he said. Gajewski believes male circumcision is tantamount
to genital mutilation. The Legislature made female genital mutilation a
felony crime in 1995. Gajewski's lawsuit argued that courts should extend
the ban to boys.

Northwest District Judge Gerald Rustad dismissed the case
last week, saying Gajewski had no standing to bring the case. Gajewski was
suing on behalf of North Dakota boys younger than 18, but he is 78 years
old, and does not represent any young boys, the judge said.

"Although the
topic is one which could result in interesting information and analysis in
the proper forum, this court has not been presented any precedent which
would persuade it that (Gajewski) has standing to bring the action,"
Rustad wrote in his dismissal order.

North Dakota's state and federal
courts have taken up the issue previously. Last September, the North
Dakota Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Fargo doctor who had circumcised
an infant in March 1997. The boy's mother argued she was not told in
detail about the procedure's benefits and potential risks. The woman,
Anita Flatt of Hawley, Minn., also had argued that North Dakota's law
barring female genital mutilation did not offer equal protection to males.

The Supreme Court said Flatt did not have standing to make that argument.

In June 1996, a Bismarck woman, Donna Fishbeck, made similar
equal-protection arguments in a federal lawsuit against the state.
Fishbeck's infant son had been circumcised with the consent of the boy's
father, even though she objected to the procedure. U.S. District Judge
Patrick Conmy dismissed the case, ruling that Fishbeck did not have legal
standing to bring the lawsuit. [???] A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals upheld Conmy's ruling in June 1997.

"Even if we were to
declare the North Dakota statute invalid because it is underinclusive, and
even if ... we could enter some kind of decree that would criminalize male
circumcision, there is no assurance at all that the injury claimed by
Fishbeck, either on her own behalf of on behalf of her son, would be
redressed," the appeals court's decision says. [That could be said with equal truth of almost any law at all.]

Circumcision opponents say
the foreskin protects the penis and can enhance sexual pleasure. Gajewski,
who is not circumcised, said those benefits are being taken away without
reason.

"It's unnecessary and detrimental to a male," he said. "You
destroy too much potential."

In a groundbreaking report released this week, the San Francisco
Human Rights Commission publicly called for an end to medically
unnecessary interventions on intersex children and revealed that
nonconsensual genital surgeries on children are more common in the
Bay Area than previous testimony revealed.

The May 3 report -- entitled "A Human Rights Investigation into the
Medical 'Normalization' of Intersex People" -- is the result of two
years of investigation, including a public hearing held last year
attended by activists, advocates, and members of the medical
community. This is the first time that a governmental entity in the
United States has addressed intersex issues from a human rights
perspective.

The HRC report noted that these surgeries are motivated by parents'
and doctors' needs to assign a gender to a child -- one that is in
line with arbitrarily defined gender conformity -- which very well
may be at odds with how the child will come to live or identify.

"These treatments are not performed for the treatment of illness or
to alleviate pain. Instead, these surgeries are irreversible, often
causing disruption of bodily functions, pain, and the need for additional
surgeries," said a statement released by the HRC. "The Commission found
that 'normalizing' interventions are medically unnecessary, are not
medical or social emergencies, and that such interventions performed
without the patient's informed consent are inherently human rights
abuses."

Specifically, HRC recommendations include never performing
"normalizing" interventions in infancy or childhood, and only
performing medically unnecessary procedures when a patient gives
legal consent.

Activists told the Commission that intersex interventions are usually
informed by homophobia, as the success of treatments is often measured by
a child's ability to have heterosexual intercourse in the future. In the
case of hypospadias, society dictates that a male cannot be expected to
sit to urinate, resulting in surgical interventions based upon sex
stereotypes. Such interventions are not without risk, considering the
small size of the genitals receiving surgery. The intersex movement
advocates that people be able to decide for themselves, without shame,
what to do with their own bodies, and the report from the HRC agrees.

Dr. Lawrence Baskin of the Department of Urology of the University of
California, San Francisco, (UCSF) wrote to the Commission to dismiss the
testimony from intersex activists who said they were unhappy with the
gender-normalizing interventions they received as children. "Of these 10
testimonies, it is quite clear that nine of these individuals have had
severe emotional problems secondary to their status as intersex patients,"
he wrote.

Intersex activists have long pointed to such comments as examples of the
obstacles they face when advocating for their rights. But ISNA Executive
Director Cheryl Chase noted that the fact that a government's human rights
commission has recognized the issue should be the beginning of the end to
such dismissals.

HRC investigator Marcus Arana said that despite Baskin's displeasure with
the HRC report, UCSF has responded separately and positively, designing a
task force to address the issue and inviting input from the community.

VHS tapes or DVDs of the May 27, 2004, intersex public hearing are
available online at http://sunset.ci.sf.ca.us/sfgtv.nsf

[Bay Area Reporter volume 35, number 18, 5 May
2005]

[This raises the question: If medically unnecessary surgical interventions are inherently human rights abuses when performed on children with "abnormal" genitals, what makes circumcision of a "normal" child acceptable?
]

A Muslim “assaulted” his five-year-old son by having him circumcised against his mother’s wishes, a court heard today.

The father is alleged to have secretly taken the boy to a doctor in north London for the procedure.

Lewes Crown Court heard he then told the mother – an English Christian – what had happened and said: “There is nothing you can do.”

The 27-year-old man – who lives in Crawley, West Sussex, but cannot be named for legal reasons – denies committing an assault occasioning actual bodily harm in August 2003.

Irena Ray-Crosby, prosecuting, told the court today that the parents had been involved in a three-month relationship and the mother realised she was pregnant after they broke up.

Once the defendant, who is of Moroccan origin, realised the child was his he began raising the issue of circumcision in line with his religious beliefs.

“He told (the mother) he wanted to have the boy circumcised and she said she would agree with that only for medical reasons and never for religious ones.”

The court heard that in August 2003 – shortly after the boy’s fifth birthday – he went to stay with his father.

The defendant telephoned the mother and asked her to come out of her house to talk to him, at which point he told her about the circumcision.

According to Ms Ray-Crosby, the mother accused him of assaulting their son, and the defendant responded: “There’s nothing you can do. I’ve looked into it and it’s perfectly legal.”

He later sent her a text message saying she should give the boy salty baths in order to help him heal.

The court heard that the father had been “under pressure” from fellow Muslims to get his son circumcised, and paid £100 in cash for the procedure to be carried out.

Ms Ray-Crosby said the defendant had admitted when arrested and interviewed by police that he had not told the mother in advance of his plans. She added that there had been no medical reason why the boy needed to be circumcised.

“This is not a case that is anti-Islam or anti-any other faith. It’s simply about a boy who was circumcised without his mother’s consent.”

Ms Ray-Crosby said the father had never applied for legal parental responsibility, and therefore could not have provided proper consent for the operation to take place.

A British court has ruled that consent of both parents is required for circumcision.

Medicaid, the health insurance programme for the poor, covers 25% of the births
in the state.

The section of the bill that ends Medicaid funding is:

"SECTION 8. NONMEDICALLY NECESSARY PROCEDURE. The Department of Health
and Welfare shall discontinue paying for nonmedically necessary
circumcision for male infants as recommended to the Joint
Finance-Appropriations Committee by the House of Representatives Health
and Welfare Committee. The estimated savings from discontinuing this
procedure are $172,800 from the General Fund. Major private insurers in
Idaho have discontinued this procedure based upon the newest evidence that
it is medically unnecessary."

Fez, the Idrissid city, dressed in festivity attire, is ready to
celebrate, as of today Wednesday and for three joyful days, the ceremonies
of the circumcision of the two-year old Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan.

Adorned in the most splendid finery ever, and ornamented by all forms of
beatitude and bliss that reign all over the eleven-century old city, Fez
expresses its happiness to share with the royal family these memorial
days.

The populations of the imperial city, and those of adjacent regions
flooded in masses towards the emblazoned squares and parks of Fez where
musical bands of the four corners of kingdom will be performing popular
music genres of Ahidous, A•ssaoua, Hmadcha, Gnaoua, Ahouach, Abidat Rma,
Taqtouqa Jabalia and Guedra, and where horsemen from all over the country
joined the city to perform, on ornamented horses the famous Moroccan
fantasia.

Though circumcision, removal of the prepuce, is primarily a tradition of
Moslems and Jews, it has gained universal practice. In the United States
of America more than one million male infants are circumcised each year.

In Morocco, this "operation" was until some decades ago an exclusivity of
the barber, who, on appointment, would come to the house of the family,
armed with his scissors, and his many archaic utensils. Today, the barber
is gradually loosing ground to the physician or male nurses well
specialized in the matter.

After the performance of the "surgery," [quotation marks in the original] the young boy, center and source
of happiness for the whole family, is then dressed in "miniaturized" groom attire, with white "djellaba," white long-sleeved shirt, white traditional
trousers, and red or green Fez.

In many families, it is the grandparents who take care of the event. They
would make all the necessary preparations, take the young boy, without his
father's knowledge, to the barber's or the physician to get circumcised.
This old custom is still largely prevailing in many regions.

Some families would hire a horse to take the circumcised young boy on a
ride in the neighborhood, amid zaghroudas, cheers and clapping of family,
friends and neighbors.

According to scientific findings, circumcision can spare men a number of
diseases that they might attract.

... The circumcision operation of the Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan took place
this morning, Thursday, in the Royal Palace in Fez. It was followed, after
the Al-Asr prayer, by an offer procession of gifts in front of Bab Nhas in
the Royal Palace. In addition to this, official estimates revealed that
for two days 50.000 of Moroccan children will be circumcised throughout
the country.

They were not asked to plead and their case was
postponed until April 13 to allow them to obtain
legal aid.

It is alleged that the five noticed that Nceba
Cekiso was still a "boy" during a mojiso of
another initiate on Christmas Day and his family
decided that he be "caught".

Xhosa culture allows people to forcibly
circumcise boys deemed to have passed the age of
initiation or who have bad habits, as a way of
rehabilitation.

In this instance the ritual was half done; Cekiso
was circumcised but was removed by the police on
his seventh day in the bush and taken to
hospital, preventing other initiation processes.
In such cases men can still be regarded as
umkhwetha (initiates).

Forcing people do undergo the ancient ritual,
which marks the transition from boyhood to
manhood has, in recent times, caused concern
among human rights organisations.

Cases of forced initiation have been reported to
the police and in one instance two Rastafarians
objected to the procedure on religious grounds.

The incident has sparked a debate on whether or
not traditionalists should still be allowed to
force people against their will into the bush to
undergo initiation.

Mwelo Nonkonyana of the Congress of National
Traditional Leaders of South Africa, who is also
an advocate, said both parties had acted within
their rights and it was up to the court "to weigh
which right overrides the other".

Nonkonyana said traditional leaders were fighting
to change the "Westernised" constitution to
consider traditional values. Submissions had been
made to the Constitution Review Committee and the
issue was being considered.